One of the surest ways to get sweet, sweet engagement on social media is to post a map of the United States with the most popular [insert literally anything here] for each state.
Whether it’s favorite candies, Thanksgiving sides, most searched celebrities, or most sold items, people love to yell about how the maps, which are almost always based on some questionable metrics, are wrong and laugh at the ridiculous preferences of certain states. On Thursday, the NBA world got their version of this when Lids released maps of its top selling jerseys, both by player and team. The player selections weren’t terribly surprising, with a lot of LeBron James across the country and stars dominating their own home markets, but there were a few bizarre choices.
Here’s the NBA’s top selling Player & Team jerseys by state at @Lids this season:
• @KingJames & @Lakers are #1 in 30 states
• @Bulls are best sellers in 8 states
• Retired players are top sellers in 14 states
• Mike Bibby has the best-selling player jersey in Alabama pic.twitter.com/gcsoh921RO— Nick DePaula (@NickDePaula) February 17, 2022
Vince Carter’s popularity in West Virginia and Maine is odd, as is Steve Smith in Idaho, but the strangest one has to be Mike Bibby leading the way in jersey sales for the state of Alabama. The former Kings and Hawks guard has not played has not played since 2011, which means for some reason the people of Alabama are clamoring for a decade-old jersey of a solid starting guard, but one who was never an All-Star. Given this is just sales at Lids, there’s a very good chance this was a few people buying Bibby jerseys at an Alabama mall swinging this number, as I can’t imagine it’s a hotbed of NBA jersey sales overall. It’s funnier to imagine there is just a rabid Mike Bibby fan base in Tuscaloosa that just can’t get enough of Bibby merch, though.